Battleship

[jacobed]

Wasnt that kinda what Master and Commander was about

 

[Electrix]

I was giving this movie the benefit of the doubt as I thought a certain amount of creativity would be involved to turn a pretty simple board game into a two hour movie. Turns out they've just copied Transformers.

I'm not a fan of the casting either. It's everything that's wrong with movies. They think just by paying Liam Neeson millions to appear it will give the film some prestige, when it's just full of models and singers.

 

[Jake Cassidy]

It looks like fun.

 

[C. Lee]

Am i the only one that thinks a movie about 2 supposed enemy boats trying to find each other in an ambient of depression and fear could be interesting?

I have no problem with that. There have been many variations of that plot....from sailing ships, to submarines, to spaceships. A well written and acted script makes a good show even if it has a plot similar to something else.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Wow, you know you've got a winner when your trailer channels Transformers, 2012, and Battle: Los Angeles.

I love the exchange:
Captain's dead sir.
Who's next in charge?
You are.

You would think (and hope) that he would know that.

 

[Lencho01]

It looks ok, I guess. Hasbro really wants to trick people into thinking this is exactly like Transformers, but less "sexy."

 

[SuperSoldier985]

My impression after watching the new trailer hasn't changed.

The movie looks entertaining and fun--as it should.

 

[Octoberist]

I mean, it's silly because it's restricted to Battleships, and because of the branding, they're stuck there in the sea. Otherwise, if it wasn't called Battleship and was able to open up a little to include land battles, it looks fun.

I do have to say that the alien designs are good. FINALLY, it's not a xenomorph ripoff or an earth-toned insect with many limbs.

 

[Lencho01]

I too like the design. I have a feeling that this will be more enjoyable to watch than TF.

 

[CelticPredator]

Doubt it.

 

[Project862006]

the alien designs look sweet

 

[BrollySupersj]

Aliens and explosions, plus Liam Neeson. Yep, I'm there opening day. Looks awesome.

 

[Punisher Rising]

My impression after watching the new trailer hasn't changed.

The movie looks entertaining and fun--as it should.

I feel the same. This movie just looks like harmless Summer fun.

 

[Nitrobot]

Sneak Peek of one EYE of The Regents:

 

[Lord]

That reminds me of V

 

[Tron wolfgang]

I think the trailer made it seem too similar to transformers, it even had that same robotic sound effects but being that Hasbro made these two thats exactly what they wanted to do, bring all the transformers audience to see it, smart move

 

[gkokujin]

i thought Battleship was a Milton Bradley game

 

[Paroxysm]

This looks so awesome, can't wait.

 

[Lencho01]

Doubt it.

I don't know. It doesn't look like it'll have any of the same type of "humor" and the action looks like you can tell what's happening without having to really analyze what you're seeing and figuring it out.

 

[Lencho01]

http://badassdigest.com/2011/12/09/ahoy-peter-berg-a-visit-to-the-battleship-edit-bay/

Published December 09, 2011 by Devin Faraci
Ahoy, Peter Berg: A Visit To The BATTLESHIP Edit Bay

Devin sat down with Peter Berg to discuss the big budget adaptation of the famous board game. Did Berg sink our Battleship?

I can report to you with some confidence that the aliens in Battleship do not look like skinned crabchickens or ****ed up spiders or anything like that. Peter Berg's scifi adaptation of the Milton Bradley board game features three classes of aliens, and the one that I saw, in maquette form, wouldn't look out of place in the world of Halo. In fact the one I saw, the brute shock trooper type, wears armor reminscent of Master Chief.

He was a maquette, and someone had stuck a stogie in his mouth; it truly looked like it belonged there. These are good old fashioned anthropomorphized aliens, and they're not the savage mindless beings we've seen so much of in movies like Cowboys and Aliens and Super 8. There are the soldiers but there are also scientists, and there are administrators as well. And these aliens have a purpose that is very understandable.

Peter Berg explains the mindset of these aliens: "If you meet him his interest is not to kill you. He's not really interested in you. He's just interested in the minerals and the resources of your planet. If you get in his way he'll kill you without prejudice, for the most part."

In other words, they're an awful lot like us.

Back in June I had a chance to visit the editing room of Battleship, which is located in Santa Monica, at Berg's Film 44 offices. Berg showed off some clips from the film - many of which made it into the trailer that you have already seen - and talked frankly about the film, and why he's making it.

I was talking to my partner and I said, 'I think the future of our business are these big, special FX, global movies: these five-quadrant films that go out all around the world at the same time and have a huge impact and a huge audience. I want to make one. I want to be in that business.'

And now he's knee deep in it. Berg's background is almost exclusively in practical effects and more human stories, and he's found the adjustment to the big CGI blockbuster requires him to rethink his approach.

It definitely requires a different gear in terms of patience. I've just had to accept the fact that, 'Okay, if I want to see something it's going to be a couple of weeks and it probably won't be kind of what we talked about,' but it will eventually start to come. We're starting to see it now. It's really not unlike sculpting, like if you had to do a big wood sculpture out of this block right here. If you're paying someone a lot of money to do it and you have a couple of guys chiseling you come in after a few hours and nothing is done. You come in two days later and nothing. Four days nothing. Two weeks nothing. Four weeks and it's like, 'Wait a minute. That does look like a head. It's not great, but at least it's a head. Now there's an arm. There's a body.' It's a slow reveal. I tend to be kind of impatient and a little hyper and I want to see it and if I say, 'Okay, lets go do this,' I'm used to it being done. When you do a dramatic film it's amazing how quickly you can cut. This requires patience. It has been frustrating and a bit of unnerving because you don't know if it's going to work and then slowly, like with ILM they deliver and it starts to work.

It was the work of James Cameron and Michael Bay that convinced Berg to take the leap into event filmmaking, but why the hell Battleship? When the movie was announced most people were sort of incredulous - after all, Battleship isn't a game known for its strong narrative elements.

Well, look, there's no doubt that in today's world, film world, unless you're Jim Cameron and you've got a lot of time and an incredible amount of money to put a project together, if you look at films that are being made at this budget it's a huge risk for these companies. I mean, it's a real, bona fide risk that puts a lot of jobs at risk, a lot of children's medical insurance and dental, orthodontists and summer camps. The trickle down effect, the amount of money being spent on these films is massive. So, the idea of going alone, whether it's Harry Potter, it's Pirates of the Caribbean having at least some brand familiarity with the Disneyland ride, it's Transformers, obviously it's everything that Marvel and DC are doing; none of these guys are going completely alone. Jim Cameron, hat off to him, he is. No one else is at this budget level.

So you get the advantage of, like, 'I'm going to be able to call it Battleship.' Well, so what, there's no script there. I mean, people forget that when Pirates of the Caribbean was first pitched as a movie it was lacerated by the media, like, 'What? That absurd thing at Disneyland?' It was the same with Transformers. 'These little cheap things?' So, it's wonderful to have the brand and to have that leg up. I appreciate it, but it's absolutely zero help when it comes to solving all the creative problems. Certainly everything you saw, there's nothing that you guys saw, if you looked closely there are some weapons that the aliens were firing that may or may not resemble pegs when they hit. Other than that there's absolutely nothing there that you're getting from the game. It is the most creatively challenging story that I've ever had to do.

What will make Battleship unique among the glut of FX-driven blockbusters is the fact that Berg is bringing a level of realism and Naval cooperation to the film. His father was a WWII historian and a naval fanatic, and Berg himself wrote papers about some of the deciding naval battles of WWII. What's more, he's been shooting on real Navy ships (which presents its own problems, as these ships were not designed with camera crews in mind). Yeah, it's going to be a movie about aliens invading the Earth, but for Berg the fun is being as realistic as possible in that scenario.

I'm really into the modern navy and the capabilities of these ships are so incredible and have never been filmed before. I thought it would make for a much fresher movie experience to see a modern navy, to see people that are from our time engaging in naval warfare.

I'm a patriot and I love the military and really support the military a lot. The men and women that serve I support very strongly and the Navy understands that. So, they were willing to kind of open their doors to me, knowing that I would want to do something and get it right. We're making a film about a navy engaging aliens. So, they understand that there's a certain amount of a giant leap of logic and reality that's inherent. There's no rulebook in the navy [for this]. There's rulebooks for, 'If we encounter a hostile North Korean sub what do we do? If we ram a Japanese fishing boat what do we do?' Well, we're coming into contact with a five ship alien fleet. The rulebook is pretty much out at that point. So, they were willing to kind of let me play my own game a little bit as long as we were accurately presenting, like, what would you try and do. Sometimes, like, the stuff you just saw where if they come into contact with a ship that's not showing up on radar, what would they do. First, they'd try and query it. 'Vessel bearing 273, this is the United States Navy,' and they don't respond, well then they'll try and board it. That's what happens. That doesn't go then they're going to warn it and they're going to fire a warning shot. There's a level of increments in terms of how the escalation to conflict starts. They want to make sure that was done accurately, and for me that was a pleasure because I think that's real interesting. It's interesting to see how a Navy ship would approach. I never really knew that. We don't just run up and sink something. We're not allowed to do that. We have to try and be peaceful and especially lethal violence is a last resort. Any time there were weapons being fired they would want to make sure that we justified those weapons being fired. We filmed a lot of real Navy ships, a lot of real sailors. We had Navy consultants all over our ships because they speak their own language, like, 'What would you do here? How would you ask for this information?' And they're real happy with that and I was really happy to be able to bring that kind of reality to it. Throughout it we maintain a real sense of this is how the Navy would react to this.

Of course it all comes down to the experience - how much fun is it going to be? I can't answer that question; much of the footage I saw was from the first act, all of it setting up characters and bringing the Navy to its first encounter with an alien ship. What happens next is the meat of the story, but I can tell you that most of the nitpicks and concerns the public have about the scenario have, at some point, been addressed. This isn't a wholesale invasion, just a recon mission. The alien ships create a dome of silence around the heroic naval fleet, cutting them off not only from communications but also basic radar and GPS. And most interestingly, this is as much a surprise for the aliens as it is for us - they've been to many planets, but have never met this level of resistance.

Imagine Transformers without all of the Sam Witwicky crap and with less goofy, unfunny comedy. That's the feeling I got from the edit bay visit to Battleship. Will that be how the film plays out? We'll see in May of 2012.

 

[Still Wynning]

http://badassdigest.com/2011/12/09/ahoy-peter-berg-a-visit-to-the-battleship-edit-bay/

That was a pretty good read.

Peter Berg sounds like he's done his homework (with pertaining to the Navy and how they would react in certain situations) and it seems he has a pretty good idea of what he wants in this movie.

He's almost like the anti-Michael Bay, in a sense.

 

[:eek:]

After that trailer I'm expecting Battleship 2: Revenge of the Sunken

 

[Spideyfan93]

If this movie doesn't have Rihanna and Decker showing skin this movie fails in my eyes.

Although Decker seems to be showing a lot on the beach scene. And if that article is right...this movie...has hope?!

 

[chaseter]

Liam Neeson why?

 

[kickass]

That article was a very good read. This could surprise a lot of ppl. I hope it does.